About Eric

ERIC KIRSCH is a former Captain in the United States Marine Corps who served multiple combat deployments in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom. Commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant after graduating with honors from The Citadel in 2004, Kirsch served in Iraq as Human Intelligence Exploitation Team (HET) Officer in Charge before being selected for further training at the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) Joint Counterintelligence Training Academy (JCITA), earning the title of Special Agent with the Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) in 2009. Since his honorable discharge in 2012, Kirsch has served as an Offensive Counterintelligence Operations instructor at JCITA; as a civilian Special Agent with NCIS; and as a civilian Advisor to the American Government and the Kurdish Regional Government in Iraqi Kurdistan. He is the founder and CEO of Torchlight USA.

This blog is record of our journey. I hope you enjoy!

~Eric

Ammar Al-Ziadi, the guy that Facebook users made into an ISIS fighter.

I originally wrote about this on November 14th, 2015. Yet this case remains in my opinion valid, and stop saying “in my humble opinion” it’s your opinion, just fucking say it, stand and deliver Man. There is nothing humble about a person stating his belief nor should any belief held ever be humble, be bold, yet never fall under the fever of hysteria, which this was.

This was a photo of a “Refugee”, which went Viral, huge, and the guy in the photo, was 100% not a member of Daesh (ISIS), however, this photo was shared hundreds of thousands of times by (mostly Americans) who get their news from Facebook and rubbish tabloid non cite cities like Info Wars and Mad World News or any of these loony bin tin can cheap suit hustler muckraker fucks.

If you write, be TRUE, dispel and assassinate bullshit without one shred of remorse, ever. “Manners, Maketh, Man”, here’s a cool tale of guy just trying to get out of Iraq, and he falsely became everyone’s worst fear come true thanks to idiots on Social Media. Facebook made him an ISIS member infiltrating the EU in guise of an anguished “Refugee”!!

AHH!! Let’s lose our minds! We saw it on Facebook or IG it must be true!! Yet this guy had enough to do with ISIS as much as the Nazi’s had to do with celebrating cultural diversity. He was but just a guy, yet to the pulsating mob of decelerate histronic dilettantes on Facebook, he was ISIS and they, the MOB MADE HIM ISIS and he was coming to take your heads!!!! Oh no! A Threat!! Let’s share this on Facebook 200 thousand times!!! But he wasn’t coming to take your head, he probably just wanted a smile and an icy cold Coca Cola & to get the fuck out of the Middle East, maybe get laid, I don’t know. Enjoy, the cautionary tale of Mr. Ammar Al-Ziadi.

Bit more perspective. This is Ammar Al-Ziadi, in Turkey on September 21st, 2015.

On Ammar’s FB page, on a post dated April 14th, 2015, he’s in a video with Fadhil Jalil al-Barwari, Major General, CG of the ISOF, who is Kurdish, who fought against Jihadists (right alongside Americans) in the following battles:

The General is a badass, and I know him, he’s a good dude, yet that’s besides the point.

The Author with Major General Fadhil Jalil al-Barwari, CG, ISOF. Erbil, KRG, 2014.

Anyway this is not about him or I at all, although I’ve got a weird 6 degrees of separation with Ammar Al-Ziadi yet not really, it’s a small world. This whole thing is about the various bits of information flooding the interwebs, with sources unknown. I saw Ammar here four times the first morning alone on the “Newsfeed” when this exploded prior to Thanksgiving 2015.

Al-Ziadi exploded not with a suicide vest yet as a meme made by far right “Super Patriot” flag wavers, citing ISIS infiltration of Europe, coming to kill us all, and take away our burrito coverings and fuck our livestock, something about cave dwellers (which is 80’s Muj – 90’s Taliban up to about 2002 Afghanistan btw, and not entirely correct for the entire Taliban as most of Helmand (Kandahar), where the Taliban is from, is pretty much all open desert, yet the cave dwelling Afghan stereotype has roots in absolute truth as Tora Bora… etc, those early day insane battles against TB-AQ which hold incredible tales of American, NATO Allied, and non Talib-Afghani Heroism, fuck I’m rambling) blah blah blah.

Ammar Al-Ziadi with a baby, aww.

Anyway, that’s cool those 3%’er guys are being active and I fucking dig enthusiasm, yet if you are, be enthusiastically accurate, as this dude Ammar here is NOT ISIS, nor even Syrian, he’s fucking Iaqi, he’s a former member of the Iranian backed Iraqi Shia Asa’ib Ahl al-haq Militia, there’s a fucking difference between them and ISIS.

They are not much better, yet they are far less worse, and this difference is absolute notable for anyone with a working fucking brain. There are subtle differences in world event shit ok, and critical details being slaughtered by an easy to make meme that is categorically incorrect either accidentally or intentionally ignorant is wanton fuckery and I’m fucking sick of it. Yet this is FB, we’re not dealing with IC guys here, we’re dealing with people who think Applebee’s is fancy.

Look deeper, it is important. It’s like being able to PID surrendering Korean’s on Iwo Jima that the Japanese enslaved and were forced to help dig their defensive tunnels and then fight the Americans, at gun point. Or like USAF pilots being able to tell the difference between fucking LAV’s and BMP’s. That sort of important serious ass shit. It’s seriously important ass shit. Shit that needs to be taken importantly ass, seriously.

Ammar Al-Ziadi with a severed human head! AHHHH!! He’s ISIS!!! AHHH!!! LET’S LOSE OUR MINDS AND TOTALLY IGNORE EVERYTHING ELSE HAPPENING IN THIS PHOTOGRAPH LIKE WHAT HE’S WEARING AND THAT THE SEVERED HUMAN HEAD HAS A BEARD WHICH ARAB IRAQI’S DON’T NORMALLY WEAR. Theatrics aside the head belonged to the body of an ISIS fighter. It is speculated the fighter was decapitated in an explosion, yet that cannot be substantiated with fact. This is the photo which invigorated hysteria in sedentary Social Media dwelling Americans.

There are a shit ton of Iraqi militia members that fought against or have nothing at all to do with Daesh (ISIS/ISIL/Whatever, the super fucking bad guys) that are in the EU now who are NOT involved in any sort of terrorism at all. You know here’s the bitter truth, Iraq as we once knew it, is gone, forever.

During the war, I knew alot of good dudes, yes they exist, in the IA and IP who were good men of honorable character and true bravery who assessed the situation, as terrible as it was and STILL fought against overwhelming odds in the face of true and immediate danger and decided, after YEARS…that if they were not already grievously wounded or killed (which was statistically nearly inevitable), to take their family and get the fuck out of Iraq and the Middle East altogether cause if you want to get technical about it, shit is sort of ‘fucked up there, has been and always will be, there I said it.

I’m not speaking as an advocate for this guy, not personally, I do not know him I have no idea what he is doing now, nor will I speculate as that’s irresponsible and as stupid as thinking all Muslims are terrorists… as much as all Germans were Nazi’s, dig?

I do not know every action he has ever conducted, I have no idea what his total belief system is, or if he likes Coke or Pepsi better, yet one thing I know is he’s not fucking Daesh, the internet anything without cited source (preferably multiple, sources, corroborating, independently) is mostly bullshit, do not fall for it, look deeper, and people need to see the devil in the fucking details.

-EGK.

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Eric graduated with honors in 2004 from the The Citadel, the Military College of South Carolina, Charleston, SC, USA. He was then commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant, United States Marine Corps the same year, completed multiple combat deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan as a Counterintelligence / Human Source Intelligence Officer and later as a Case Officer and Active Duty Special Agent with the Naval Criminal Investigative Service. Eric honorably discharged as a Captain after 8 years’ service in 2012.

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About Eric

ERIC KIRSCH is a former Captain in the United States Marine Corps who served multiple combat deployments in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom. Commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant after graduating with honors from The Citadel in 2004, Kirsch served in Iraq as Human Intelligence Exploitation Team (HET) Officer in Charge before being selected for further training at the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) Joint Counterintelligence Training Academy (JCITA), earning the title of Special Agent with the Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) in 2009. Since his honorable discharge in 2012, Kirsch has served as an Offensive Counterintelligence Operations instructor at JCITA; as a civilian Special Agent with NCIS; and as a civilian Advisor to the American Government and the Kurdish Regional Government in Iraqi Kurdistan. He is the founder and CEO of Torchlight USA.